My First Cable Socks

All I knit lately are socks.  I confess, I used to think sock knitters were a little crazy, but after realizing the practicality and convenience of knitting socks, I think they’re on to something. 

There are many reasons knitters prefer to knit socks and I won’t bore you with those details because I’m sure you’ve read them all.  But I will say that as a knitter who lives in South Texas, knitting socks gives me the opportunity to knit year round.  Do I need to knit sweaters?  No ’cause apart from the fact that it’s only “cold” for about three months, I can get great bargains on sweaters at the end of the season, thus saving tons of $$ on yarn.  Plus, I reserve my serious knitting to the winter months since it is cool enough that I can welcome the UFO’s warmth on my lap, any other time of the year and it is pure hell.  Socks are small enough that they don’t have to lay on my lap and provide unnecessary heat.  Hurray for socks!!

So without further ado, I present to you my first cable socks.

 

Pattern:  Sensational Knitted Socks Braided Cable w/ Garter Bead
Yarn:  Opal Uni Solid 4 ply
Needles:  US0

It’s All Knitty’s Fault

Had I never picked up knitting and found my way to knitty.com, I would never have clicked on this.  Yep, one look at those disproportionate girls and I was totally taken with them.  How could anyone be afraid of these cuties.  Then again I wasn’t six years old when I first laid eyes on the Blythe dolls.

For the past two years I’ve been infatuated with them and I swore I’d own one someday.  I’d hinted on several gift giving occasions my desire to own a Blythe, but that never materialized.  This past February I decided that as a birthday present to myself, I’d take the plunge and bid on the girl of my choice.  A day after my birthday, Asian Butterfly had made her way from halfway around the world to her new home. 

I’ve already started knitting for her and look forward to knitting more miniature pieces.  Not only will I be able to use the scraps of yarn left over from other FO, I’ll be able to claim that I knit a sweater in one evening.  

Pattern:  Modified Classic Kozy Roller from Wolly Rockers’ .
Yarn: KnitPicks Bare Essenial fingering weight hand-dyed by me.
Needles:  US0

I really like how the sweater’s color and AB’s eyes complement each other. The little hint of green does the job nicely

Eleanor and Mini-Clowns

I can honestly say Eleanor (left pair) is my first FO of this year.  I started the first sock last April when  Momma Monkey sponsored a knit off which I signed up for as part of team Koigu.  This is as far as I got that weekend:

Sometime that year I finished the rest of the sock, but it stayed single for four seasons.  I finally CO its companion last month and weaved all the loose ends sometime last week.

The yarn used to knit Eleanor is KnitPicks Bare Essential which was my dyeing project from a year ago.  I really like how the colors came out and they seem to complement the pattern nicely.  Needles used are size US 1 and the Eleanor is a Socktopia exclusive pattern.

The socks to the left are a mini version of my Happy Clown Socks.  DD insisted she wanted socks like mine and given the amount of yarn left over from the first pair, I had no excuse not to knit them.  If you look with  a more critical eye, you’ll notice one toe has a whole lot more fuschia then the other.  The only reason that happened was because I ran out of the Opal Feelings.  A good thing I had the Opal Uni Solid to finish the socks off.

I started the Mini-Clowns in December and finished the last pair a few days ago.  I love the contrasting cuff, heel and toe look, but I detest the weaving of all those loose ends.  I swear, sometimes it takes me longer to weave those ends than to knit the whole thing.

Needle size US 1 and generic pattern is improvised by me.   

Little Blue Riding Hood

Apologies for the crappy picture since it does not do the pattern justice.  I started this project in August ‘07 and finished knitting the body sometime in October.  My intentions were to introduce a more girly color either through embroidery or applique of knitted flowers, but my motivation and creativity were very limited.  Before I knew it,  December was upon us and the recipient of Daphne could not wait any longer.  If I had, she’d be old enough to dress her dolls with the cape.

  

Little Cousin with her Mommy

Pattern:  K2T Daphne’s Cape
Yarn: Shepherd 4 Me in Navy
Needles: US 3 & 6

Verdict:  The pattern is very easy and I love the concept.  I would knit this cape again but would like to introduce other stitch patterns or some colorwork to make it a more interesting piece to both knit and look at.  The yarn is great to work with and felt wonderfully soft in my hands.  The easy care of this yarn makes it ideal for baby wear.

 

 

Trying to Get Back…

But it’s been almost four months since my last post and there are a few little changes in WordPress which is making it difficult for me to post images.  Now I ask, what’s the point of posting about your creations if there are no images to support your work?  Not that I’ve been super productive on the knitting end, but I have managed to finish a couple of projects and have another one started. 

Stash build up is minimal.  The only addition to my yarn collection in the past 4 months were 3 skeins of Lion Brand’s Superwash which I found for $1.50 a piece at Big Lots.  Over a month ago I visited the Yarn Barn and not only did I get the scare of my life (there were flyers everywhere announcing the store was closing April 15) but I also walked out with the most current back issues of Knitting Vogue for $0.10 each.  What a deal!!!

Last week I decided to stop by the Yarn Barn again, figuring I’d find all sorts of great discounts due to the store’s upcoming closure.  I was expecting to see all sorts of “Going Out of Business” signs as I approached the building but that didn’t happen.  The store front’s display did look skimpy compared to the past so I figured they’d liquidated most of their inventory.  Inside, the cubbys which were at one time bursting with all types of yarn were quite bare at this point.  The curious thing was that prices hadn’t been slashed.  Upon further investigation, the store associates revealed the shop had been bought out and would not be closing after all.  That was great news, even though I didn’t find the deals of the century and have no idea where the Yarn Barn will be relocating to. 

‘Til next time!  Happy knitting and stash building to all.

Shamefully Unproductive

At the most, I think I’ve picked up my current WIP just a handful of times.  Even my sewing machine is collecting dust once again.  Oh well, starting a new job is taking some getting used to, especially adjusting to my new schedule while trying to get over a nagging cold.  I am keeping a project at work to knit during lunch, but for some reason I’d much rather read during that hour than be handling yarn.  Heck, I’ve even been visiting knitty.com and ravely.com minimally.  When I do log on to knitty, it’s mostly to visit the Gallery to see what other knitty heads have been creating.  The other forums hold little to no interest, particularly the Vented Spleen which I avoid completely. On a positive note, my yarn stash has not grown at all since even my interest in yarn has subsided quite a bit.  Yay says my bank account.

Knitty’s winter issue is up and even though I have yet to read the articles, I quickly scanned all the new patterns.  While I found some of the patterns in this issue quite silly, ugly or just not my style, there are several patterns worthy of my “to do list.”  Chevrolace socks are my favorite from this issue.

Clown Socks Finished

I’m relieved I got my knitting mojo back and was able to finish my clown socks this weekend.  Overall, I am thrilled with the end result.

Yarn: Opal Feelings’ shade 1705 for the leg and foot and Opal Uni’s shade 1413 for cuff, heel and toe. 
Why I like this yarn: 1.  The colors are bright and happy and the coordination is awesome. 2.  The yarn is self striping and in big bands.  Yep I hate weaving in those loose ends. 3. Provides lots of yardage.

Pattern:  My own.  The cuff is a 2×2 rib, the leg and foot stockinette, Folk Sock’s provided the Dutch Heel and Star Toe.  Since I wanted to utilize as much of the yarn possible and have a longer leg, I CO 96 stitches (because of my ginormous calves )and decreased 8 stitches at the beginning of every band’s color change until 68 remained. 

Needles: Size 0US 5 set dpn’s

Even though I did make these with a longer leg, there is plenty of yarn left over for a small pair of socks. DD has been asking me since I first started these if they were for her. Well I guess she’ll get her socks after all and they’ll actually fit her right.

I’m In

Ravelry sent me their invite to join sometime in October.  I accepted, signed in as bufanditas and began touring the site at once.  Overall I like how easy it is to see other people’s projects, their comments on said projects and the yarns they used.  A nice feature is the ability to link projects to published work and the database of yarns is pretty amazing as well.

I’ve begun adding current projects to my notebook.  There’s no way I’m listing all my previous FOs nor my yarn stash because quite frankly I don’t feel like taking the time to upload all the images to flikr nor recreating something that I’ve already blogged about.  I won’t take the time either to add to the ”to do” list because I’d rather waste my time doing something else.  I will try to list future projects whenever possible but knowing me, I’ll probably do that in spurts, just like I do when it comes to posting here.   

Yes, I’m bad when it comes to posting, but I’m trying my best to keep current.   I’ve also been kind of bad on the knitting front.  I managed to complete the first Clown sock but for the past week or so the second sock has been placed on hold halfway through the heel.  I’m sure I’ll finish it by the end of the year.

Since I haven’t been knitting, I’ve been sewing a lot more.  I’ve made a couple of small project bags, (click here for closeups)

a makeup brush case,

a pinafore and skirt for DD.

 Next on my list are curtains for DD bedroom.  I have one week to complete them before I had back to the real work force on a full time basis.  I have a feeling once I go back to work, my posting will be even less frequent given how undisciplined I am.  Time will be sure to tell how it all pans out. 

My Kinda Deals

Not only was I able to get two sets of these for less than $25 after using passwird.com’s special 20% off code, I also scored some great book deals at a local Barnes and Noble.  This summer I received a $25 gift card from B&N and had held on to it because I hardly drive near one of these stores.  I’m glad I didn’t use it right away because after my trip to LnT to pick up the pillows, I paid a visit to the B&N which is in the same shopping strip. 

The first thing I noticed when I walked through their doors was a cart partially filled with books and other merchandise.  A big red sign advertised a 75% off sale.  A magnetic force pulled me immediately to the cart to check out the selection of clearance stuff.  To my delight I found two cookbooks, two children’s books, one kick-ass leather bound journal and this baby:

It ain’t no Barabara Walker, but for $7.50, it is guaranteed a spot in my library.  In all I’m pretty happy to say that I only had to fork over $1.80 to cover the difference between the gift card and purchase total.  I love finding good deals like these.

Dusted It Off

My sewing machine that is, because it’s been months since it was last used due to the lousy tension which I couldn’t fix.  I figured I’d give it some time off with the hope the problem would take care of itself. 

Guess what? It did.  Maybe something settled down during the time it stood still or maybe I just had more patience to figure out the problem.  Who knows.  I’m just glad it’s working better.

Given that I’d been knitting more socks lately and having to run more errands which required sitting/waiting patiently while my name was called, these two activities merged perfectly together.  Well almost.  You see, I’ve been carrying my knitting in either bags that are too big or too cumbersome. 

For a time now I’ve had my eye on those little pull string bags, aka, sock project bags, but since I’m a cheap ass and couldn’t bring myself to spend $10+ on some rather sad looking ones nor the $20+ on the nicer ones, I made do with what I had.  My philosophy of course was why spend more money when I had the materials and some of the skills needed to construct what I want.  But I was being lazy and used Ziploc bags instead to carry my knitting.

That of course changed when I the sewing bug hit me hard.  I took out my sewing machine, dusted it off, rummaged through my fabric stash (which I’m embarrassed to say could be a tad smaller) and found fabric remnants I’d purchased a while back. 

After some planning and pattern making based on sample bags I liked, I began to cut, sew and assemble.  Here’s the end product.

DH was nice enough to comment on the fabric’s “happy” colors but their assumed association doesn’t bother me. Let’s face it, I’m of Mexican decent and like the majority of my people, I love color and the more of it, the better.

I forgot how much fabric I had, but was able to make a total of 4 lined bags.  The simple drawstring handle made from ribbon I found in my stash keeps the bag nicely closed and is the perfect length to carry from your wrist to knit as you go. Needless to say, I was rather pleased with the end product even though there are little adjustments here and there planned for a few more future bags.

Given how inspired I was, I even managed to sew six pairs of pants and start a bathrobe for DD to wear this winter.  Might as well but a dent on that fabric stash and take advantage of a working sewing machine.  For my next sewing projects, I’m planning  storage cases for my dpn’s and my makeup brushes.